Salisbury, N.C.’s Wikipedia Fantasy

Posted on July 26, 2014

RFP Staff

♦ Who keeps the Salisbury, N.C. Wikipedia entry so deceptively wonderful and free of any possible negativity? Is it purposely baited to lure the unsuspecting here? It lacks updated statistics especially the “disturbing demographics” of poverty, crime, and substandard education.

Would you spend time in a garden of stinkweed and fail to smell or see it? In a sense this is what Salisbury’s fanciful Wikipedia entry attempts to do.

Try adding an entry about the recent major turmoil in city hall, or about the wildly unsuccessful Fibrant rollout, the gang violence and crime that’s seized Salisbury to the point communities are coming together to find answers. Or try entering the failed attempts to unload the Empire Hotel. And clock how long your entry takes to be removed.

Is Salisbury’s Wikipedia fantasy being guarded by a paid shill or someone so dedicated to a non-terrestrial vision of Salisbury they would fight on in a forgotten jungle years after the war was over?

For a long time the city attempted to deceive us and outsiders about its danger, soaring poverty, and substandard education. Now Salisbury is slowly and painfully facing a series of crisis points such as the cover-up in city hall and the community’s reaction to gangs, violent crime, and break-ins by coming together to uncover answers to these problems.

The city’s motto is “To Seem, Rather Than To Be”, or Videri Quam Esse. The inability to concentrate on issues requiring our city’s elected officials to recognize the serious nature of Salisbury’s problems is rooted in deep-seated denial by the elected leadership. They’ve tried keeping up appearances for so long that their sophomoric rhetoric about taking action is reminiscent of the Titanic’s orchestra playing “Nearer My God to Thee”, before the ship shuddered and slipped down into the North Atlantic’s icy waters.